This
photo provided by the Barron County Sheriff's Department
in Barron, Wis., shows Jake Thomas Patterson, of the
Town of Gordon, Wis., who has been jailed on kidnapping
and homicide charges in the October killing of a
Wisconsin couple and abduction of their teen daughter,
Jayme Closs. Closs was found alive Thursday, Jan. 10,
2019, in the Town of Gordon.

BARRON, Wis. — The Latest on a Wisconsin
teenager who was found alive three months after disappearing
following her parents' deaths (all times local):

4:10 p.m.

Authorities in Wisconsin say they believe the man suspected
of abducting 13-year-old Jayme Closs was out looking for her
when he was arrested.

Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald said Friday that
21-year-old Jake Patterson wasn't at home when Jayme escaped
Thursday afternoon.

Deputies arrested Patterson in his vehicle soon after Jayme
turned up on a neighbor's doorstep near Gordon. He's also
suspected of killing Jayme's parents in an October attack at
the family's home near Barron, which is about 60 miles (100
kilometers) south of Gordon.

Fitzgerald says investigators don't believe there was any
social media connection between Patterson and Jayme. He says
investigators are trying to determine how he "became aware"
of the girl.

2:50 p.m.

Elizabeth Smart says that finding a 13-year-old Wisconsin
girl who had been missing for three months is "why we can
never give up hope on any missing child."

Smart was 14 when she was abducted from her Salt Lake City
home in 2002. She was rescued nine months later.

Jayme Closs disappeared in October after her parents were
killed inside their home in Barron. Authorities say she
managed to escape Thursday from a home about 60 miles (100
kilometers) south and they arrested a 21-year-old man on
homicide and kidnapping charges.

Smart told The Associated Press by phone Friday that she
would expect that Jayme will have to confront the fact that
there "is no going back to the way things were." She
recommends that Jayme's friends and family give her space
and allow her to make her own decisions.

2:10 p.m.

Ownership of a remote cabin where a Wisconsin teenager was
apparently held during a nearly 3-month disappearance passed
to a credit union soon after the girl's abduction.

Records show that defendant Jake Thomas Patterson's father
transferred the title of the cabin near Gordon to Superior
Choice Credit Union on Oct. 23, eight days after the Oct. 15
attack at the Closs family's home near Barron, which is
about 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of Gordon. It was
appraised at $79,300.

Jake Patterson was arrested Thursday after authorities say
13-year-old Jayme Closs managed to escape from the cabin and
approach a neighbor, who sought help. Authorities believe he
killed Jayme's parents to abduct her. He is jailed on
homicide and kidnapping charges. Jail records don't list an
attorney for him.

___

1:45 p.m.

The company that employed the slain parents of a Wisconsin
teen who was kidnapped says the man accused in the attack
worked at the plant for one day nearly three years ago.

Steve Lykken, president of the Jennie-O Turkey Store in
Barren, issued a statement Friday saying 21-year-old Jake
Patterson was hired one day but quit the next, explaining
that he was moving away from the area.

An obituary for James and Denise Closs says they worked at
the turkey processing plant for 27 years.

Lykken says the company and the Hormel Foods family are
"overjoyed at the news of Jayme's safe return."

Authorities say Jayme escaped from a cabin in the town of
Gordon on Thursday and they arrested Patterson on homicide
and kidnapping charges.

Kristin Kasinskas, who lives on S. Eau Claire Acres
Circle with her husband, Peter, speak with the media
Friday, Jan. 11, 2019, in Gordon, Wis. Kristin Kasinskas
called 911 on Thursday, to report that Jayme Closs, 13,
had been found after another neighbor out walking her
dog encountered her and brought her to Kasinskas' house.

BARRON, Wis. — A 21-year-old man
killed a Wisconsin couple in a baffling scheme to kidnap
their teenage daughter, then held the girl captive for three
months before she narrowly managed to escape and reach
safety as he drove around looking for her, authorities said.

Jayme Closs, 13, was skinny, disheveled and wearing shoes
too big for her when she approached a stranger and pleaded
for help Thursday near the small, isolated north woods town
of Gordon, where police said she was being held by Jake
Thomas Patterson.

Within minutes, Patterson was pulled over and jailed on
kidnapping and homicide charges for what authorities said
was his meticulously planned shotgun attack at the girl's
home in October.

The news that Jayme was safe set off joy and relief 60 miles
(96 kilometers) away in her hometown of Barron, population
3,300, ending an all-out search that gripped the state, with
many people fearing the worst the longer she was missing.

"My legs started to shake. It was awesome. The stress, the
relief — it was awesome," Barron County Sheriff Chris
Fitzgerald said, describing the moment he learned Jayme had
been found.

Jayme told one of the neighbors in Gordon
who took her in that she had walked away from a cabin where
she had been held captive.

"She said that this person's name was Jake Patterson, 'he
killed my parents and took me,'" said another neighbor,
Kristin Kasinskas. "She did not talk about why or how. She
said she did not know him."

The sheriff said investigators are trying to figure out what
happened to Jayme during her captivity and why she was
seized, and gave no details on how she escaped except to say
Patterson was not home at the time. He said there is no
evidence Patterson knew Jayme or her family or had been in
contact with her on social media.

"I know all of you are searching for the answer why any of
this happened," Fitzgerald said. "Believe me, so are we."

The sheriff said that he did not know if Jayme had been
physically abused but that she was hospitalized overnight
for observation and released. Investigators were still
interviewing her, and she was "doing as well as
circumstances allow," he said.

Kasinskas called 911 to report the girl had been found after
another neighbor out walking her dog encountered Jayme and
brought her to Kasinskas' house. Patterson was apparently
out looking for her when he was stopped by a sheriff's
deputy based on a description of his vehicle from Jayme,
authorities said.

He was scheduled for an initial court appearance Monday. It
was not immediately known whether the unemployed Patterson
had an attorney.

Jayme's grandfather, Robert Naiberg, said he had been
praying for months for the call he received about his
granddaughter.

"I thought, 'Good for her she escaped,'" he said.

Jayme disappeared from her home near Barron after someone
blasted his way in and shot her parents, James and Denise
Closs, on Oct. 15. The sheriff said investigators believe
Patterson killed them in order to abduct the girl.

Patterson took such measures as shaving his head beforehand
to avoid leaving evidence at the scene, the sheriff said. A
shotgun similar to the one used was recovered from the home
where Jayme was believed held, according to Fitzgerald.

Property records show that the cabin belonged to Patterson's
father at the time of Jayme's disappearance.

Patterson worked for one day in 2016 at the same Jennie-O
turkey plant in Barron as Jayme's parents, Jennie-O Turkey
Store President Steve Lykken said. Patterson quit, saying he
was moving from the area, Lykken said. But the sheriff said
it did not appear Patterson interacted with the couple
during his brief time there.

He had no criminal record, according to the sheriff. He
graduated in 2015 from Northwood High School, where he was
on the quiz bowl team and was a good student with a "great
group of friends," said District Superintendent Jean Serum.

Kasinskas said she taught Patterson science in middle
school, but added: "I don't really remember a ton about
him."

"He seemed like a quiet kid," she said. "I don't recall
anything that would have explained this, by any means."

The woman who first spotted Jayme on Thursday, Jeanne
Nutter, said she was walking her dog along a rural road when
a girl called out to her, grabbed her and revealed her name.

"She just yelled, 'Please help me! I don't know where I am!
I'm lost!'" Nutter, a social worker who spent years working
in child protection, told The Associated Press.

Nutter took her to the home of Peter and Kristin Kasinskas.
Jayme was quiet, her emotions "pretty flat," Peter Kasinskas
said. From what she told them, they believed she was in
Gordon, a logging town of about 650 people, for most of the
time she was missing.

Over the past few months, detectives pursued thousands of
tips, watched dozens of surveillance videos and conducted
numerous searches for Jayme, including one that drew 2,000
volunteers but yielded no clues.

"It was only a few months ago that we as a community
gathered to pray for Jayme's safe return at Barron High
School," Barron County District Attorney Brian Wright said
Friday. "God has answered those prayers."

In November, the sheriff said he kept similar cases in the
back of his mind as he worked to find Jayme, including the
abduction of Elizabeth Smart, who was 14 when she was taken
from her Salt Lake City home in 2002. Smart was rescued nine
months later after witnesses recognized her abductors on an
"America's Most Wanted" episode.

Smart said in a telephone interview that Jayme's story is
"why we can never give up hope on any missing child."

MILWAUKEE — Notable events in the
disappearance and discovery of Jayme Closs, a 13-year-old
Wisconsin girl who went missing after her parents were
killed in the family home. Investigators say she was found
alive on Thursday and that a suspect is in custody.

___

Oct. 15, 2018 — James Closs, 56, and Denise
Closs, 46, are found shot to death in their home in Barron,
a town in western Wisconsin. Authorities issue an Amber
Alert for 13-year-old Jayme Closs, and the search for her
begins.

Oct. 16, 2018 — Investigators say they don't consider Jayme
a suspect in her parents' deaths. Authorities also dismiss a
tip placing Jayme's whereabouts in Miami as "not credible,"
and say they believe the girl is in danger.

Oct. 17, 2018 — Authorities announce that investigators
believe Jayme was in her family's home when her parents were
fatally shot.

Oct. 18, 2018 — About 100 people join a ground search for
Jayme after Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald requests
the help of volunteers. The search turns up nothing useful.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice announces it is sending
therapists, comfort dogs and school resource officers to
help students at the school Jayme attended.

Oct. 23, 2018 — About 2,000 volunteers from as far as
Minneapolis help with another ground search . Several items
are found and taken for assessment.

Oct. 24, 2018 — The FBI offers a $25,000 reward for
information leading to Jayme's location. The amount is later
doubled to $50,000 by the Jennie-O Turkey Store, where James
and Denise Closs worked.

Oct. 27, 2018 — Funerals are held for James and Denise Closs
in Cameron, a village next to Barron.

Oct. 29, 2018 — Prosecutors announce they have charged a man
with burglarizing the Closs home but say he's not a suspect
in the case.

Dec. 12, 2018 — Hundreds of people attend a "tree of hope"
lighting ceremony in honor of Jayme in Barron.

Jan. 10, 2019 — Jayme is found alive in the Town of Gordon,
a rural community about an hour from her home. A suspect is
taken into custody.